Midnight Masquerade (24 page)

“Deirdre!” Again he turned to her. She looked at him this time, but her cool glance gave him no pleasure, and no hope.

“I’m sure you have arrangements to make, for Paris,” she said, and rising up, strode past him into the hall.

“I’m not planning to go to Paris,” he called into the hallway.

She ignored him. She climbed the stairway sedately, with her head high and her hand trailing along the banister, as though she were only going up for a shawl or a book. Her lack of undulation might have given him a hint she was holding herself in, but he was too upset to notice it.

“What lies have you told her?” he demanded, turning a black eye on the duchess.

“Are you daring to call me a liar, sir?” Charney gasped.

“Yes, madam, I am. A liar and a cheat, and a damned ungrateful guest, to cast slurs on my mother’s house.”

“I am not casting slurs. I tell you to your bold face you are a blackguard, and your mama a peagoose, to have that licentious woman under the same roof as innocent girls. You have wanted out of this betrothal from the moment it was contracted, and you have gotten your wish. Now go, and don’t darken this door again.”

“By God, I wouldn’t come back if you paid me!” he shouted.

He turned sharply on his heel, grabbed his coat and hat from the butler’s outstretched arms, and stalked out, without waiting to put either of them on. The quantity of heat radiating from his collar made them quite unnecessary.

Alone in his closed carriage he argued with the squabs, saying all the nasty, clever, satirical things he regretted not having said to the duchess, till he had cooled down. When he was halfway to his own home, he pulled the check string and told the driver to return to Belvedere Square, but not to draw up the door. He was to stop the carriage half a block away from the house.

The duchess was so enthralled with the visit that she sat smiling to herself, instead of going abovestairs to pester Deirdre with the details. This left the niece alone with her bitter reflections. Her aunt was right. Dick was a confirmed liar. He would never do for her. Oh, but neither would anyone else, after having been in love with him. Very well, then, she would be a spinster. She was gazing with unseeing eyes at a book in her lap, with her mind far away, occupied with what might have been, when a smiling maid came tapping at the door.

“A billet-doux, miss,” she tittered. “He’s ever so handsome, your fellow.”

With a wildly beating heart, Deirdre twisted the knot of paper open and read Dick’s scrawl, not noticing it was written on the back of a betting sheet from Tattersall’s. “I’ll be at the circulating library at four this afternoon. If you still love me, be there. If not, please send a note to assure me this jilting is of your doing, and not your aunt’s. Sincerely, Dick.”

She promptly sat down and wrote a bleak note assuring him that it was entirely her own doing, then tossed the note into the blazing grate and went to tell her aunt she would be going to the circulating library that afternoon, if there was anything she could pick up for her.

The duchess nodded with satisfaction. Deirdre was behaving very properly, going about her business as usual. The heretical thought flitted through her mind that a little fit of vapors would not be out of place upon losing such a fiancé as Belami, but she could not condemn her niece for behaving as a lady ought to. The duchess, however, was busy with other matters: sending off for a jeweler to come and authenticate her stone, and reattach it to its chain. It must be returned to the vault, and before any of this, it must be reinsured immediately, before Carswell heard of the theft and increased his rate.

At three-thirty, Deirdre climbed into the carriage with the strawberry leaves and was trundled to the circulating library, where she arrived at three minutes before four, to see Dick pacing up and down in front of the door, looking out for her carriage.

Her heart flipped in her chest to see him, so tall and handsome, so dashing in his curled beaver and many-collared great coat. He hurried to the carriage and helped her to descend.

“You came!” was all he said, but the way he said it made up for the stilted words. His dark eyes glowed brightly and his head inclined involuntarily toward hers, till she feared she was to be kissed in the middle of the street.

“Yes. I—I wanted to hear what you had to say.”

“What I have to say is, what’s going on? What put this bee in your aunt’s bonnet that I’m suddenly beneath contempt?”

“Let us go into the library,” she suggested as a few heads turned to look at them.

“The carriage will be more private,” he countered, and opened the door to enter with her. “It has to do with Lennie’s going to Paris, I know. That was a ruse to get her to open up and tell me what she knew. I’m not going with her, Deirdre. Surely you knew that.”

“You bought two tickets. Don’t lie, Dick. A friend overheard you, and she heard you give Lady Lenore’s name for one of them too. ‘The very best rooms at the very best hotel,’” she charged, verbatim.

“Did she not hear me give Belfoi’s name as the other occupant? He’s staying at Boltons’, near Beaulac. My groom spoke to him and arranged the whole. Lennie’s not particular. She’ll be happy to go off with anyone, even her husband. She’ll take it as a famous joke, once she finds him there.”

“Dick, you didn’t! What a trick to play.”

“Of course I did. I’m all in favor of marital fidelity, now that I am about to be leg-shackled myself. Darling, we must talk the old lady over. Or rather, you must. My vile frame is not to darken her door. Can you explain it to her?”

“She’d think it was monstrous, what you’ve done. She’s so very dogged when she takes a notion into her head. Besides, she’ll think you only made up the story about Belfoi going to con her. She’s very suspicious.”

“Hmm,” he said, tapping his fingers on his knees. “I can’t really count on Bertie to help me either, as she’s dead set—that is—she’s not completely convinced . . .”

“Keep on. There’s room for another toe or two in your mouth. I know she doesn’t like me, and even less after my aunt was through with her.”

“I don’t want to hear what she said. One problem at a time. Do you think it will put her in a better mood, having her diamond back?”

“It doesn’t seem to have. Ripping up at Bessler might help.”

“Good God, don’t tell me she’s going down to Newgate to see him?”

“No, she’s having him brought to the house, to revile him there. If he’s sufficiently self-abasing, she might plead for leniency. He was always so obsequious to her that she rather likes him. Bidwell hasn’t a hope of her clemency. She isn’t even having him hauled to the house for a scold,” she said, slipping her hand through the crook of his arm.

He smiled down at her, patting her fingers. “Bessler, eh? Too bad we couldn’t have him . . . Why not?” he asked, and a beatific smile took possession of his features.

“When is he going to see her?” he asked.

“Tomorrow morning. Why?”

“Good, then I’ll nip down and visit him now. Pronto has landed in town. I’ll have him call on your aunt and you. What time is Bessler arriving?”

“Eleven, but what—”

“Right, eleven. If Pronto behaves even more foolishly than usual, just go along with him. Do whatever he suggests, outside of suicide.”

“I wish you will tell me what you’re planning.”

“I am planning to marry you, dear heart. What strange capers love leads us into. Go home and have your summer gowns aired. It will be warm in Italy.”

“Dick, she won’t agree, and I cannot like to run off to Gretna Green, to be married over the anvil, like a runaway seamstress.”

“They prefer a Fleet wedding,” he answered, and pulled the check string. When the carriage stopped, he placed a quick kiss on the side of her mouth and opened the door.

Before he got out, he turned to her with a quizzical smile. “Whoever thought it would end like this? Going to Newgate, a little tinkering with the spirit, if not the letter, of the law, clandestine meetings—I had no notion you were so ramshackle, Miss Gower, or I would have married you sooner. Does it bother you much?”

“Oh, Dick, you’re not going to do anything horrid, are you?” she asked fearfully.

“Don’t ask. Do you want to go back to the library?”

“I suppose so, but what—”

“Don’t start any long books. You won’t have much time for reading after tomorrow. I love you.”

He was gone, running after a hackney cab. He was going to see Bessler in prison, but for what purpose, she had not figured out. Did he plan to smuggle him out of prison? And if so, what good would that do? She was baffled, but confident that Dick would think of something to bring her aunt around his thumb. He always did.

In her turmoil, she forgot to pick up a pair of kidskin gloves for her aunt’s dresser. Hers had mysteriously vanished at Beaulac. Deirdre suspected they were in Dick’s laboratory, liberally grimed with soot from the flue.

Chapter 18

Pronto frowned
heavily at Lord Belami, and shook his head.

“Include me out,” he said. “I’ll be demmed if I’ll go visiting the duchess when I don’t have to.”

“You won’t have to spend two minutes with her. I want you to get Deirdre and the prison guard out of the room, so that Bessler has a few minutes alone with her. Just a few minutes, that’s all I’m asking.”

“And you’ll give me the first foal Diablo sires for free if I do?”

“Absolutely gratis.”

“You said
free.”

“That too. I’ll even let you use my Marabel as the mare. It’ll be a perfect match, Pronto. He’s a long-legged, deep-chested goer, and she’s big and sweet-tempered. A nick of the right bloodlines.”

“Who’s to say the foal won’t get his hot temper and her ungainly size? A wild big brute is what I’ve already got. Took a bite out of me last night.”

“Then we’ll match them again, till it comes out right. Or you can use him for stud with one of your own mares. Now, after you leave the duchess’s place, come directly to me and tell me how it went.”

“I don’t like it. Demmed if I do. Daresay it’s illegal, if the truth was to be told.”

“It won’t be—ever.”

“You won’t get Bessler off scot free, to send him off to Austria, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’ll do time right enough. Bidwell as well.”

“Bidwell can hang for all I care. He’s the cause of half my woes.”

“No,
you’re
the cause, Dick. Of more than half. Might go so far as to say Bidwell is the cause of a quarter. So you mean to settle down with Deirdre Gower after all, then, do you?”

“No, I mean to go on exactly as I always have, but with Deirdre beside me.”

“Hmph, I wonder how she’ll like your Widow Barnes.”

“Naturally that part of my life will have to be curtailed.”

“Curtailed? It’ll be abandoned, my boy.”

“That’s what I meant, naturally.”

“Won’t be natural to
you.
Then there’s your gambling. Can’t stay out for two or three days and nights handrunning, with a wife at home waiting for you. Squalling kids, bills . . .” He shook his head in dismay.

“I’m sick to death of gambling, if you want the truth. I’ll be happy for an excuse to decline such offers.”

“Decline
them? They was always your own idea!”

“Well, I have better things to be doing now. It’s time I settled down. I feel ready for it, Pronto. There comes a time in a man’s life when he’s fed up with squandering his time and money, and wants a more settled life.”

“Aye, it’ll be settled all right and tight. You and Deirdre and Charney.”

“She won’t be living with us.”

“Then there’s the investigating that’ll have to go as well. Deirdre won’t care for that.”

“Yes, she will. She won’t mind that,” he said with a soft smile. “She’s not the sort of girl you think she is at all, Pronto. She’s very easy to get along with. Has a good sense of humor, and such pretty eyes—did you ever see such long lashes? The way she walks, too.”

“Believe I’ll be toddling along now. When you start on the eyes and the undulating, it’s time to go. Eleven tomorrow morning at the duchess’s place. Draw off Deirdre and the guard. See what I can do.”

“Come directly back here after. I want to know how it goes before I barge in on them. Remember, now, you tell her Lord Belami is very upset with the broken engagement, and note carefully what she has to say. Have you got that all straight?”

“I ain’t a jughead. Of course I have it straight. You’ve told me a dozen times already.”

“I’m depending on you. Don’t fail me.”

“Have I ever?” Pronto asked, offended.

“Yes, always,” Dick replied with a desperately worried look. But there was no one else to do this unusual job for him.

“I won’t fail you. Diablo and Marabel,” he muttered, sauntering toward the door. “Ain’t sure I wouldn’t prefer my own Snow White mare. Other hand, could set her up with Jenkins’ Arabian. Black and white—wonder how it would come out. Wouldn’t want a zebra. Look a dashed quiz.”

Chapter 19

To ensure gaining admission to the duchess’s saloon, Pronto Pilgrim arrived ten minutes before Bessler and the guard from Newgate. He feared that if he came after them, he would be put to wait in another room. Those ten minutes were the ten longest of his life. It seemed an eternity that he sat looking at the wizened, glaring little face of that angry aristocrat. Nothing he said could bring her into humor, and all because she had fingered him as Belami’s friend.

“Dandy little saloon you have got here, Your Grace,” he essayed, gazing at the mustard walls, the puce sofa, the age-dimmed pictures that formed dark blurs on the wall.

“Little?” she asked sharply. “I have one of the largest saloons in London. What brings you to call on us, Mr. Pilgrim? Not bearing any message from your friend, I trust.”

“Eh? Nothing of the sort. He didn’t put me up to it, did he, Deirdre?”

“Oh, no. I’m sure he did not,” she assured her aunt with every semblance of truth.

“How would my niece know whether he did or not, idiot?” Charney asked.

But the greater part of her mind was on the tirade she would roll over Bessler. She had honed and polished her insulting epigrams till they gleamed. Such trite phrases as “adding insult to injury,”
“not
a gentleman,” and “not what I would have expected from one I deigned to call my friend” rolled around in her head. That would set him groveling. If it went off well, she might write the whole up in a letter to a newspaper editor, or at least to her sister in Scotland, to keep for posterity.